This saint, one of the Church’s most illustrious missionaries. This is the apt description given to the Jesuit priest and saint St Francis Xavier, whose feast we celebrated on Tueday 3 December 2024, by Capuchin brother Fr Berchmans Bittle OFM Cap in his book A Saint A Day.
When I think of St Francis Xavier spontaneously comes into my mind and heart the impressive missionary journeys he undertook to preach the Gospel. His Basque courageous spirit, his famous erudition as well as his great heart in espousing St Ignatius’ spiritual journey as well as his faithful generous heart in preaching Jesus Christ everywhere made him the formidable missionary that he was. Like St Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, Francis Xavier had the challenging task of going around the far east to win over people to Christ. The places he visited are impressive. He has has been to the Portuguese East Indies, sailing from Lisbon, went to Goa in India and visited the native Indians, went to Cape Comorin, then to Travencore, to Malaya including going from island to island, island of Mindanao (Philippines), to Japan and was about to enter pagan China. However he died on the island of Sancian at the mouth of the Canton river, in the Chuanshan Archipelago on the southern coast of Guangdong, China.
His missionary zeal led St Francis Xavier to instruct adults and children for catechesis, visiting hospitals and prisons, adapting the faith to the local people’s culture and customs, founding churches in various villages and revisiting the people to whom he gave the foundations in the faith. In all this St Francis Xavier could make his own the words St Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his first letter addressed to them: I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some (1 Cor 9:22). Marveled at such an extraordinary missionary endeavour Pope St Pius X did not hesitate in naming St Francis Xavier patron saint of foreign missions and missionary works.
In the office of readings’ second reading we read an interesting letter from St Francis Xavier to St Ignatius. In it we appreciate the zeal with which Francis Xavier preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have visited the villages of the new converts who accepted the Christian religion a few years ago. No Portuguese live here, the country is so utterly barren and poor. The native Christians have no priests. They know only that they are Christians. There is nobody to say Mass for them; nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s Law.
I have not stopped since the day I arrived. I conscientiously made the rounds of the villages. I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptized. This means that I have purified a very large number of children so young that, as the saying goes, they could not tell their right hand from their left. The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
I could not refuse so devout a request without failing in devotion myself. I taught them, first the confession of faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father and Hail Mary. I noticed among them persons of great intelligence. If only someone could educate them in the Christian way of life, I have no doubt that they would make excellent Christians.
Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”
I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.
This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like – even to India.
Upon reading such a letter the obvious conclusion would be that which St Paul wrote, black on white, in his first letter to the Corinthians: For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Cor 9:16). For Francis Xavier as it was for St Paul, to preach the Gospel was a sacred duty. In his catechesis on the passion for evangelisation: the apostolic zeal of the believer, taking St Francis Xavier as witness, of Wednesday 17 May 2023, Pope Francis pictures this great saint in the following manner:
His [St Francis Xavier’s] intense activity was always joined with prayer, with the mystical and contemplative union with God. He never abandoned prayer because he knew that strength came from there. Wherever he went, he took great care of the sick, the poor and children. He was not an “aristocratic” missionary. He always went with the most in need, the children who were most in need of instruction, of catechesis. The poor, the sick… He specifically went to the boundaries of caring, where he grew in greatness. Christ’s love was the strength that drove him to the furthest frontiers, with constant toil and danger, overcoming setbacks, disappointments and discouragement; indeed, giving him consolation and joy in following and serving Him to the end.
May prayer lead us to become missionaries in today’s world, starting from where we live and work, to be witnesses of the Gospel for those in need and those who are seeking the true meaning of life. May, by St Francis Xavier’s powerful intercession, we too reach out to others and share with them the immense richness of our Catholic Christian faith.
Lord God, you won so many peoples to yourself by the preaching of Saint Francis Xavier. Give us the same zeal that he had for the faith, and let your Church rejoice and see the virtue and number of her children increase throughout the world. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.